Hobbies
Korea, Suwon, Part 1
Samsung City Suwon is a city of about a million people, about an hour south of central Seoul by train. I suppose you could call it a scaled-up Korean version of Guildford, on the edge [more…]
Travel
Arts
A Perfect Weekend
It started with a gig Back in July 2017, my son’s band (pop punk – you wouldn’t like them!) were invited to play at the Workington Touch Down Festival. As the money was good, they [more…]
Arts
Film Review: The Tourist
It all started, they say, when he met a woman……….. Angeline Jolie plays Elise, the extraordinary and captivating girlfriend of Alexander Pearce, a criminal who has sensibly disappeared after embezzling $2 billion from a mobster. [more…]
Arts
Confessions of a campsite courier, Part 2
Je vous parle d’un temps Que les moins de vingt ans Ne peuvent pas connaître ….. C’est là qu’on s’est connu Moi qui criait famine Et toi qui posais nue….. Charles Aznavour – La Bohème [more…]
Arts
Didn’t He Do Well?
O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! Thus wrote grumpy bad speller of a Scottish poet, doonhamer Rabbie Burns. To be blunt, dear Puffins, I wish that [more…]
Arts
Postcard From Berlin, 1979
Back in the late 1970s, when we were both rising stars in IT in the Ministry of Defence, my friend was posted to Berlin to run the Army’s computer centre there. Being a good mate, [more…]
Arts
Confessions of a campsite courier, Part 1
Background For some of you, the title of this piece has probably resurrected memories of certain quality films from the 1970’s. Here, however, I have used the word “confessions” mainly for alliterative purposes. Not that [more…]
Arts
Further Childhood Holiday Memories
Dad changed jobs in early 1963 and went to work for, what was at the time, the worlds 3rd largest auction house. They were family business based in a turning off Bond Street. Dad’s new [more…]
18th Century
Holding Hands – Part Three
The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring. In [more…]